


Forest

by DaisukiRose



Series: Twenty One Pilots Oneshots [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Based on a Twenty One Pilots Song, Fire, Gen, Songfic, Stay Alive, Stay Street, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenagers, forest, manic depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 05:48:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8566363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisukiRose/pseuds/DaisukiRose
Summary: Bobbing his head to the tune inside his mind, he kept walking down the trail in the cold September storm. He’d wandered farther into the trees than he ever really had before. The new trees around him seemed darker somehow, more malevolent; something about them screamed danger and brooding thoughts and was nothing like the happily-coloured tree on Josh’s arm. He hugged his arms around himself, just hoping that nothing blew over and crushed him. The trail was turning left and right, twisting around gnarled trunks and skeleton-like branches, every tree being stripped of its leaves by the gale. Josh shivered – He should have worn a thicker hoodie. The song his brain had concocted took a turn for the dark, the beat coming through strong and fast and altogether pulverizing the sense of calm he’d thought he had. He started humming to himself, accompanying the harsh beat with a gentle rhythm which clashed just enough to make it perfect.





	

Josh didn’t know what he hoped to find in the woods that bordered his neighborhood, really. They were a glorified stand of trees with a path cutting through the middle, a few footpaths branching off to God only knows where, but he found resolve in them. He’d just taken to wandering through them, just thinking, idly tapping out drumbeats on his thighs when he sat down in the leaves that had gathered underneath. Today, in retrospect, was probably not a good day to be in the forest. A storm was blowing in, making the trees around him shake violently and raindrops hit his hair. He just prayed that the colour would stay in – He’d just dyed it, a new shade of candy red, and he really didn’t want it dripping all down his front. 

Then again, there’s something peaceful about a storm. He’d never bothered reading The Tempest, but Shakespeare probably had some flowery comparison to the complete amity inside a storm, he was sure of it. It was just too perfect not to. Josh wasn’t really a big words guy, though. Sure, he enjoyed reading, but if he tried to string together a poem, let alone one with a topic, he’d probably fail a lot and then burn the evidence that he’d ever tried. That’s what he did for English class, anyways. 

Why he would be thinking of English class when this was his first late-fall without school in 13 years was beyond him. He kind of missed it, he guessed; the structure of it, giving him a set list of things he had to do. So now, instead of class periods and lunch bells, he had walks in the forest and rolling thunder to accompany him. It felt a little surreal, to be honest. He loved the forest, loved trees, loved it all so much that there was a rather large tattoo of a tree and a little river up his arm. Nature was kind of his thing, he guessed. Nature and music.

Bobbing his head to the tune inside his mind, he kept walking down the trail in the cold September storm. He’d wandered farther into the trees than he ever really had before. The new trees around him seemed darker somehow, more malevolent; something about them screamed danger and brooding thoughts and was nothing like the happily-coloured tree on Josh’s arm. He hugged his arms around himself, just hoping that nothing blew over and crushed him. The trail was turning left and right, twisting around gnarled trunks and skeleton-like branches, every tree being stripped of its leaves by the gale. Josh shivered – He should have worn a thicker hoodie. The song his brain had concocted took a turn for the dark, the beat coming through strong and fast and altogether pulverizing the sense of calm he’d thought he had. He started humming to himself, accompanying the harsh beat with a gentle rhythm which clashed just enough to make it perfect. 

Rounding a bend in the path, he ran into the first other human he’d seen all day. Literally. The two boys crashed into eachother in a flurry of colours. Someone (it could have been both of them, even if Josh would fervently deny it) let out a scream as they fell. When the two had managed to right themselves, untangling limbs with a string of apologies, they took a second to blink owlishly at eachother. “I scream, you scream, we all scream cuz we’re terrified of what’s around the corner.” The other boy said, sounding as if he meant it merely as an afterthought.

“What?” Josh asked, cocking his head.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Tyler.” The other boy, Tyler, held out one hand, running the other through his short brown hair to try and brush the leaves out but only succeeding in crumbling them and adding dirt to the mix. He had this impish, apologetic smile on his face that made Josh chuckle softly.

“I’m Josh.” Josh said, standing up and offering the lanky boy a hand out of the dirt. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before,” Tyler mused, squinting at Josh.

“You probably haven’t. I moved here towards the end of last school year.” He lamented, a rueful smile on his face. 

“Aha…” Tyler made a sound in his throat as if he were contemplating something. “What are you even doing out here? The storm’s getting bad.”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Josh said instead of an answer because, truthfully? He didn’t know why the hell he was out here. 

“I remembered that I have a treehouse.” Tyler said, nodding as if it were something every normal person remembered randomly.

“Oh, dude, that’s sick!” Josh said, grinning. 

“So sick,” Tyler parroted. “Want to come and see?”

“Duh!”

In retrospect (Josh has been doing a lot of retrospective thinking lately), going to a stranger you literally just met’s random treehouse might not have been such a great idea. This Tyler dude could’ve been a sociopathic killer, simply luring poor, unsuspecting Josh to a location where it’s easier to murder him. He could have been some sort of escaped convict, serial rapist, schizophrenic lunatic, anything really, but Josh still went to his treehouse. _Dammit, Josh,_ his brain later said to him. _You could’ve been killed._

But he wasn’t killed. Tyler legitimately had discovered his old childhood treehouse, a simple thing up a ginormous oak tree, bolted to the trunk with huge pieces of wood and too many stabilizer beams to count. There was a ladder hanging through a porthole in the bottom of the treehouse, a roof over it covered in old red shingles, and actual windows in the side of it that made it look like a miniature home in the tree. Which, treeHOUSE, Josh should’ve known. “Woah,” Josh breathed. “This is awesome. Can we still go inside?”

“Probably.” Tyler said, looking excited by the possibility as he grabbed the first rung of the ladder, giving it a test before pulling himself up it and shortly disappearing into the old treehouse. “It’s safe!” He called down, his head sticking out the bottom with a grin.

Once Josh had wormed his way up the ladder and into the treehouse, he sat cross-legged in the corner, giving Tyler a strange look. “You know, I know literally nothing about you, and here I am, sitting in your treehouse in the middle of a storm.”

“True.” Tyler lamented. “Well uhm… I’m Tyler Joseph, I graduated in June in Columbus, I’m from there, and I own a treehouse.” He laughed. “Your turn.”

“I’m Josh Dun, but you know that. I graduated in June from here, I’m originally from Columbus, and I do not own a treehouse, but I wish I did.” Josh grinned, leaning back against the plywood walls. “Treehouses are awesome.”

“Yeah.” Tyler agreed, just as a particularly strong gust blew through, rocking the treehouse unstably in the breeze. “Maybe not in a storm though.”

“Probably not. We should get down.”

“Yeah.” Tyler made a move for the ladder, and Josh squirmed out of the way to let him get to the hatch, watching him crawl down the ladder and out of sight. When Josh heard feet on the ground below, he started his slow descent, being careful of where he put his feet, lest a ladder rung not want to support his weight. He made it to the bottom without incident, though, and then turned to smile at Tyler, who was huddled into his hoodie. “Hey, uhm… I know we just met like literally five minutes ago and all, but uhm… Do you maybe want to be friends?” He asked.

Josh nearly laughed. The taller boy looked so much like a puppy, hopeful and eager but ready to be denied all the same, that it was endearing. “Okay, yeah, sure. I don’t have any friends here yet, really.” He said. “Uhm. You want my phone number, then?”

“Yeah, okay.” Tyler smiled, handing Josh his phone. He watched as Josh put in his own number and then sent himself a text from Tyler’s phone. He heard the _ping_ when it arrived on Josh’s own phone and the red-haired boy smiled. “So I’ll see you?” Tyler asked carefully.

“Definitely.” Josh smiled. “Bye, Tyler-With-a-Treehouse.”

“Bye, Josh-without-a-treehouse.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|-/_$+@%_$+^33+_|-/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Josh and Tyler made it a habit to meet at the treehouse. Tyler was usually there when Josh went out wandering, and if he wasn’t, then Josh only had to wait a little while. The treehouse had become almost pivotal to the two of them, which seemed out of place when you considered they were two freshly graduated men, but somehow, it fit. Depending on the weather, the treehouse meant different things. Sometimes it seemed inviting, childish, and charming, other times it screamed of repressed anxiety and a tortured childhood, and others still it was a place to get away, to leave the outside world and be someone else for a while. When he was at the treehouse, Josh wasn’t Josh Dun, college dropout and unsuccessful drummer, he was just Josh, Josh with the tree tattoo that captivated Tyler, Josh with the red hair and the addicting smiles. Tyler wasn’t Tyler Joseph, diagnosed with too many mental disorders to list properly and a broken childhood, he was just Tyler, Tyler-with-a-treehouse, Tyler with the inverted cross on his shoulder, Tyler with the rubber band around his wrist, Tyler with the hidden smiles and flower crowns. It was an escape they both needed.

Tyler had been restless in the weeks following the incident, usually found pacing outside the treehouse or huddled in the corner, a notebook in his hands that he never showed Josh. Josh had seen the inside of the notebook, on accident when he had found Tyler napping in the treehouse. It was open to a page with a poem on it, a poem that Josh had accidentally read, accidentally related with on a level he definitely wasn’t meant to. Josh had closed the notebook quietly and crawled back out of the treehouse, sure that Tyler hadn’t meant for him to read that, and took another short walk around the woods, contemplating. _He wakes up early today, throws on a mask that will alter his face. Nobody knows his real name, but now he just uses one he saw on a grave._ Tyler’s words haunted Josh as he walked a loop in the forest. Was Tyler talking about himself, a friend? Was Tyler even his real name? _He pretends that he’s okay, but you should see, him in bed late at night, he’s petrified. Take me out and finish this waste of a life,_

The poem, the first stanza that Josh had written, stuck in his brain, the words imprinting themselves on the front of his brain. When he had finally looped back to the treehouse, he could see the top of Tyler’s head through the window, leaned against the wall. Josh climbed the ladder without hesitation, going to sit opposite Tyler. “Hi,” He said quietly.

“Hi, Josh,” Tyler’s voice was listless, the bags under his eyes telling a story of nights haunted by cerebral demons. They were quiet for a moment, and then Tyler spoke again. “I know you saw my poem.”

“You’re a very good poet.” Josh said, wringing his hands out of habit.

“Thank you. You weren’t supposed to read my poem.”

“I’m sorry,” Josh really was. 

“Don’t be.” Tyler sighed as he moved, rolling his head as if his neck was stiff. “It’s okay.”

“Okay.” Josh looked down at his shoes, worn converse that he’d owned since forever, and wondered if he should get a new pair soon.

“I wrote part of a song, though.” Tyler admitted, picking at the edges of his black notebook.

“Oh?” Josh perked up, studying the boy. Tyler hadn’t shared any of his songs before, Josh was genuinely curious.

“Yeah,” Tyler said, sliding the notebook over to Josh, it open to a certain page. “Just look at that one, okay?”

“Okay.” Josh read over it, grinning. “This is really good, Tyler!” 

A faint blush rose up over Tyler’s cheeks. “Thanks, I guess,” He said softly.

It was just a chorus and a few lines of a verse, but they managed to captivate Josh in a way no other poems had. Josh hadn’t really liked poetry in school, but Tyler’s screamed to him in a way none of the others had. _I don’t know why I, feed on emotion, the stomach inside my brain. I don’t wanna be heard, I wanna be listened to. Does it bother anyone else that someone else has your name?_ Josh had thought about that a lot, actually, the other Josh Dun’s and Josh Dunn’s in the world, going around with his own name or a variant of it. It had bothered him quite a lot. _I scream, you scream, we all scream cuz we’re terrified of what’s around the corner,_ “Oh!” Josh giggled. “That’s the first thing you said to me!”

“Yeah,” Tyler smiled. “Yeah it is.”

“Sing it?” Josh asked, pushing the notebook back to Tyler. “Sing it and I can drum to it.”

“With what drums?” Tyler looked around the tiny treehouse. “There’s literally nothing in here, Josh.”

Josh drummed on the wall and the floorboards, then turning his grin to Tyler. “Try me.”

Tyler let out a breath. “I don’t sing in front of people.”

“I don’t drum in front of people.”

“Fair enough.” Tyler sighed, picking at the sleeves of his sweater before starting singing. Josh found a beat, one just slow enough and just ridiculous enough that it fit the song without being too much or too somber. Tyler’s voice rang off the trees, making Josh smile as he drummed on the floor. “Down in the forest, we’ll sing a chorus, one that everybody knows! Hands held higher, we’ll be on fire, singing songs that nobody wrote.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|-/_$+@%_$+^33+_|-/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tyler and Josh had been singing and drumming Tyler’s poems into songs for almost a week, and Josh reveled in the smiles it brought from the shy boy. Josh had moved a few hand drums into one corner of the treehouse, and Tyler sometimes brought a ukulele. “We’re like our own little band!” Josh had joked, making Tyler smile.

God, he loved Tyler’s smile.

Tyler had been getting worse again, though. His songs had turned into scribbled messes speaking of suicide and demons in his head, twisting the lyrics to sound almost happy when he and Josh played them together. Josh admired Tyler’s courage. Tyler scoffed at that. “I’m the biggest coward ever, Josh, what do you mean?”

Josh had meant the way Tyler could put his feelings on paper, the way he crafted the dark pit in his chest into words that flowed, words that meant something, instead of just angrily pounding on drumheads until he was physically too tired to experience emotion. Tyler had found his outlet, and his outlet was beautiful.

Tyler had never been able to finish the song about the forest. It was missing something, missing that integral piece that made it all fall together, and Tyler had been stressing himself out looking for the perfect bridge. “It’ll all be fine, Tyler,” Josh had said, fiddling with the skin of one of his drums. “Just breathe, it’ll come to you someday.”

“But I want to finish it!” Tyler had said, pulling on his hair. “It’s so close, Joshie, I just have to get this one part and it’ll be perfect. Why can’t I figure it out?”

“You will,” Josh insisted. “You’ll find the piece, just maybe not right now. Wait for the inspiration.”

Tyler shook his head, chanting over and over. “Gotta finish, gotta finish, gotta finish…”

Josh had left the treehouse shortly after that. Tyler had shut down – There wasn’t anything Josh could do until he came out of it and looked at the situation again. It killed him to have to walk away from Tyler, from Tyler’s manic episode, but he couldn’t help, couldn’t fix it.

Josh hated not being able to help.

He had returned to the treehouse the next day, and Tyler wasn’t there. He waited for hours, waited until the sun set, and Tyler never came. That happened for three days, and Josh started to worry. Tyler hadn’t stayed away like this ever, he’d been there ever since they met. Josh had so much to say, so much for Tyler to convert into song and sing with him, but Tyler never came. Josh tried to write it down on his own, but all his attempts at lyrics turned out broken, fragmented, alone.

He needed Tyler to help.

Josh kept going back to the treehouse anyways, the hope of Tyler showing up fading. For a week, he came every day and left every night, just hoping Tyler would be there, hoping Tyler was alright. Josh cursed Tyler for not answering his ceaseless string of text messages. Was Tyler dead? He certainly hoped not, but he couldn’t be sure, not anymore. 

Josh walked into the forest on the eighth day of waiting for Tyler, and froze when he smelled smoke. His eyes widened and he ran into the forest, hands getting scratched by briars, jacket being pulled at by the long, needle-like hands of the trees. When he rounded the bend into the deeper part of the forest where the trees began to look gnarled and foreboding, the clouds thickened, obscuring his view until he reached the treehouse. Huge orange flames were puffing out of the windows, the paint on the shingles peeling off from heat, and Tyler at the base of the tree, curled in on himself, soaking wet and clutching an empty petrol can. “Tyler!” Josh yelled, holding his hoodie over his nose as he ran towards the boy, grabbing his arm and pulling him to his feet. He could hear the noise of his drum skins popping in the flames. “Tyler, get up, we gotta get out of here!”

“The treehouse is on fire,” Tyler said quietly as he fell forwards, fell onto Josh’s shoulder. “and for some reason, I smell gas on my hands,”

“Yeah, okay, we can talk about this once we get out of here,” Josh pleaded, pulling Tyler behind him as he tried to reach into his pocket and call the fire station. 

“This is not what I had planned,” Tyler said, eyes on the flames while Josh pulled him away. “This is not what I had planned.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I've been working on this for awhile now, I just love the song Forest so much, I don't even know. I had Goldfish crackers, peppermint tea, and 39% left on my laptop battery during a storm, and I wrote this.  
> Comments and kudos are the air in my lungs and the blood in my veins!  
> I love you all,  
> Stay street, stay alive, stay amazing  
> ~xoxodaisukirose


End file.
